Canada’s top beach volleyball duo of Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson finished with silver at the Beach Pro Tour Elite16 stop in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
The Toronto duo came up short against reigning world champions Kelly Cheng and Sara Hughes of the United States in Sunday’s final, falling 2-1 (13-21, 23-21, 12-15).
Cheng led all players with 28 attack points to go along with two aces, while Hughes added 15 attack points to help hand the Canadians their first loss of the tournament. Wilkerson and Humana-Paredes each had 13 attack points, with Wilkerson also scoring two block points.
The Olympic-bound Canadian pair, ranked sixth in the world, reached the final without dropping a set in five matches.
They ousted Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova 21-18, 21-18 in the semifinals earlier in the day, while the Americans advanced to the final with a straight-sets win (21-19, 21-18) over Brazil’s Ana Patricia Silva Ramos and Eduarda Santos Lisboa in a rematch of last year’s world championship final.
The Latvian duo went on to upset the top-ranked Brazilians in the bronze-medal match.
Humana-Paredes and Wilkerson also took home silver in March at the season-opening Elite16 tournament in Doha. They made their debut as a duo on the Beach Pro Tour in February 2023 and captured gold on home sand at the Montreal Elite16 event last July.
They won Canada’s first Pan Am Games medal in women’s beach volleyball with silver last October in Santiago, Chile.
WATCH | Full match coverage: Humana-Paredes, Wilkerson vs. Latvia:
Watch Canada’s Melissa Humana-Paredes and Brandie Wilkerson play Latvia’s Tīna Graudiņa and Anastasija Kravčenoka in semifinal action at the 2024 FIVB Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite 16 in Ostrava, Czech Republic.